Here's a collection of vero (stripboard) and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts that we have put together covering many classic and popular effects in growing numbers. Many of these have been posted on freestompboxes.org, so check that site out for great discussions on building your own effect pedals. Enjoy the builds and please also visit us on Facebook and Twitter

Friday, 17 February 2012

Skreddy Lunar Module Deluxe

The Skreddy Pedals™ Lunar Module was designed for "that" certain silicon fuzz tone guitar solo I fell in love with on a best-selling 1973 album. I intentionally voiced this thing aggressively so it will cut through any mix. Very satisfying and addictive "vintage" fuzz tone.

Unlike typical silicon fuzzes, which can sound thin and raspy, the Lunar Module has a dark, brooding character.

110 comments:

Y'all see the description at the top? When you build it & don't forget to include the 100uf to ground & "pre-gain", that is what you'll get! VERIFIED! I used a 1K lin for the fuzz & agree with the comments relating to this

Just finished this and it's just amazing. One of the best fuzzes that i've ever had.http://mirosol.kapsi.fi/varasto/purkit/lunarmoduledeluxe.jpeg

I agree. Linear on fuzz feels better. I've also tried 5K for pregain, and that's not bad either. Gives some low oscillation out and darkens it even a bit more. That is when it's turned farther down from 2K...

Excellent, there's nothing better than making an effect with your own hands that impresses you enough to think of it as one of the best you've ever had. And of course props to Marc for a great design. Thanks for the pic

One more thing though.. I used TO-18 BC109s with marking BC109B5C, which say ~250 hfe on my MM. I guess that's one of the reasons it's so dark, +msoft and creamy. I think it beats my builds with AC128s... :)

I tried everything but I can't seem to get mine working. With all the controls maxed I have almost none/very low output and no fuzz. At first I thought my 15n and 3n3 caps were dead so I swapped them but still no sound. Then I saw I reversed the 10u/47u caps. The minus sign on the layout of those radial caps indicates the positive side right? Anyway swapped to the correct position but still no sound. Could I have fried a cap or transistor by the wrong polarity maybe? Before swapping the caps I also used my audio probe and found no sound after the 2k7 resistor. Anyway, here are some pics before swapping the two axial caps. Help would be greatly appreciated!http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9369/frontncp.jpghttp://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5464/backna.jpg

Hey, I'm looking to build this as my first pedal, I've done lots of work inside my guitars, so I'm gonna jump in head first with pedals. I'm also not out to build anything I don't want to play with, so this is where I've landed!

I'm going through HELL trying to source parts for this guy. I've managed to find everything on smallbear except for the capacitors, specifically the red ones. Any tips for locating these? Smallbear doesn't list anything in nf, even after converting to pf or mf/uf, they still never seem to have what I'm looking for.

The type shown in my layouts are Panasonic ECQ-"?" which can be polyester ("B"), stacked metal film ("V") or polypropolene ("P"). There are other designations but those are the common ones in effect pedals. But you don't have to use that specific brand if you can find similar on Smallbear like polyester box, greeenies, mylar etc etc. Just look at any polyester radial caps with the correct pitch, or with long enough leads for the rows spanned in the layout.

Here I am. Best thing I can advise on is, build it, omit that cap & you'll soon see what I mean ;0)

When I made mine, I got quite giddy & was soldering like a wild animal to try & get this running ASAP & as a result I forgot to place & solder the aforementioned cap. It didn't take long for me to spot it, but during that time, there was an awful lot of swearing, smoking & coffee drinking.

And, I have since packed in the fags (which is slang for cigarettes to non UK denizen). Got me one of these here 'lavatube' e-cigs, which is ok. It's a bit like playing on an Epiphone when you know you really, really really want a FUCKIN' Gibson! Calm & serene ;0)

Hi can anyone tell me the voltages they get at the transistors? Trying to debug a build. Thanks in advance. By the way, in a recent internet search I found that Skreddy (Mark) gets his transistors from Rapid electronics in the UK. For what it's worth, Rapid are a good company and I've used them for a while now.

Just finished this and it sounds fantastic! I originally had a 5KC pot but it sounded horrible. Thought it was a build error on my part. Got hold of a 1KC pot and this thing came to life! Obviously using a 5K pot is too big of a substitution. My favourite fuzz at the moment :-)

Hi,This pedal sounds great! The only problem I have is a noise Pregain pot. Very scratchy.I've change it twice but nothing has changed. What could that be?I've used Linears for both Fuzz and Body.Thanks

Hello everyone, my nane is Umberto and i came here while i was searching a good layout for this pedal. I'd like to start mine using BC549b transistors (250/260/270 hfe). May I ask you guys to post your transistors voltages in order to check if everything is work ing fine?

I built this thing thinking I had some BC109Cs but all I have are BC109Bs. So I have tried it with those, BC550Cs, and BC170Bs and all I get is a really off farty sound if I play really hard on the low strings. Plucking a higher string gets nothing.

Before I go and spend around $3 a pop for BC190Cs just to find out it's not the transistors, can anyone confirm another transistor that will work? It doesn't have to sound as good as the BC109C, it just has to be functional so I can figure out where the issue is.

I guess no matter how many pedals you build, there's no substitute for basic troubleshooting :/

Dave, what you said prompted me to check the transistor orientation again. They were correctly oriented but you also led me to check a few other basic things.

One last resort I use is the cutting wheel with a Dremel rotary tool. I carefully go over the tracks where ever there has been any soldering in case it's too small to see but eluded a good knifing. The hard part is the fact that you're free-hand wielding a cutting edge meant to cut hardened steel that is just slightly wider than the space between the tracks (so you're already eating into where you don't want to, the trick is to make it as little as possible) and any small twitch will cause it to dance across several tracks and just gouge the copper good, so it's not something I like having to do.

In this case, however, it seems to have done the trick! I ended up loading it with BC549Cs which sounds pretty damn good. I'm going to listen to some demos and based on those vs. my build I might go ahead and order some BC109Cs.

Thanks for the prompting to check the basics, Dave. After doing this for a while it's easy to get used to jsut kicking out the little details without much thought, but it usually ends up coming right back down to those same basics when things don't turn out right :/

This thing is driving me nuts. I already built this with no problems at all, a one shot deal. Now I'm trying to do a second one and all I get is a small farty signal. I've probed around and if I'm reading the layout correctly, the Q3 collector should give out maximum fuzz before going to brite/volume controls, right? I'm probing around with all pots maxed out and Q3 base is giving out full on fuzzhell but the collector sounds about the same as the output. I've tried various transistor here switching the orientations. What the crap am I missing? Do these voltages make any sense to you guys:

Thanks Miro! Now I've got something to work with. They both seem to measure fine on my multimeter, I also tried measuring straight from the copper track so they're also soldered in good. I think I'm gonna go through every single resistor value now.

Oh goddamnit it was the 1k pot all along. I was planning to swap that for linear all along. I failed to measure the other side of the broken pot and missed it, the other half was working ok. Oh, well. Now it works. Thanks!

For anyone looking for an alternative to the 1k anti-log pot for the fuzz control, I just put this together with a 5k linear in that position and added a 1k5 resistor across legs 1 and 2. The resulting taper is fantastic.

Finished my first effect pedal build (not counting the Cornish Buffer which was a trial run and worked).

Even though I thought I'd been very meticulous, checking resistor values, caps etc, and carefully boxed it up, it didn't work. Using the information above, I determined there must be an earth bridge somewhere. After much searching with a magnifying glass and knifing, I double checked the layout - low and behold, I'd put a cap pin in the wrong hole, once sorted, TIME blasted from my amp!

I now know to breadboard the thing BEFORE boxing and double check a third time to make sure my component placement is correct. The advice on here is brilliant - thanks to everyone.

What an awsome pedal. Thanks Mark for the vero, and Skreddy for the original. Now to try the P19 and a vibe of some description :-o

It really is an amazing pedal, I'm currently doing my third build. You really don't need to breadboard anything. Would be kind of a waste to have to break it down and solder together again after breadboarding. BUT always test it out before boxing! I've gotten used to cutting decent wire lengths by just eyeballing and I wire everything before boxing. The only thing I need to resolder after boxing is the DC jack.

As the first stomp I've managed to get an effected noise from, I'm over the moon with this project. A few concerns arise though:- The brite pot has no effect on the signal- The amount of fuzz is minimal compared to some of the videos I've seen of this thing in action...based on these symptoms, could anyone point me in specific directions before I start at the beginning with a full fault find?

Solved the issue with the brite pot - I'd bridged via a rogue spot of solder.

All of the pots now function - they're very interactive aren't they - however they still don't really provide an extreme fuzz and I wouldn't describe it as a distortion as detailed in the official blurb.

A BC109B transistor is a lower gain (hfe) than the C version. As mentioned above a gain of 500 to 600 is suggested for the circuit. The B version is only rated at 180 to 460 and the C version is rated at 380 to 800. The sound will probably have a much weaker distortion/fuzz than what is intended and will probably have much less gain overall.I used ones with gains just over 600 and it sounds awsome

I posted this to the FSB, and I'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

I built a LMD on veroboard and I get no sound. I tried multiple transistors and still nothing but oscillation when the fuzz and the volume are dimed. I tried probing the signal from the output back, but as soon as I get to Q3 theres nothing. My voltages are really weird.

Q1 9.2, 1.68, 1.52Q2 .99, .52, 0Q3 7.1, .99, .33

I've been very lucky with the first fifteen pedals that I've built on vero. I'm always able to find my mistake. But this one has me stumped.

This thing is killing me! It's my 12. build and the others have all been succesfull and I have already built one of LMD which worked straight away. Now I am on my second build an have run into trouble.

Bypass works and the LED comes on but I get no sound when I switch the effect on. When I max the pots I get a high pitch noise and a grounding noise when I turn the body knob to full.

I have checked all pots, cleaned between all the rails and triple checked all connections.

The transistor voltages are:

Q1 C: 4,21B: 1,50E: 1,46

Q2 C: 0,95B: 0,56E: 0

Q3 C: 4,70B: 0,99E: 0,36

I have taken pictures of the front and back of the board: http://www.inkshed.dk/2015/04/03/unavngivet-2/

glad i helped!sometimes a second pair of eyes, or your own eyes the next day, can spot what you will never find if you're on the same board for 3 hours or more searching for the mistake!speaking from my painful expirience...!!!

Hey guys, I need your help. I was playing with an overdrive in front (a PlexiDrive), and then suddenly the Skreddy stopped sounding. The voltages are very weird in Q3, the collector is only 0.74v. I noticed that the 10k resistor marks 6.40v on one end, the one connected to the 2k7 resistor, and 0.74v on the end connected to the collector. Any ideas? And also, when the pedal is connected to the power source, the box feels like having static, and when it's turned on, the "electric" feel goes - but so does the sound... Thanks in advance!

So if you come across a vero with LED+ on the board it means you just need to connect to wires(red & black is what i use to distinguish + an -) without the resistor as the current limiting resistor will be on the board (normally a 4k7). The - then goes to lug 1 3PDT footswitch. If no LED+ is on the vero layout then the full offbard wiring applies were you solder your resistor to the LED + leg and attach that along with your +9v to the positive terminal on your dc socket and again the - wire goes to lug 1 of the 3PDT. Hope thats clearer.

HiI have bought this pedal kit on bitsbox, and I'm very exited to trying to build it.Thank you very much for your diagram.I'm a very rookie in this exercice, and I have some trouble to connect componants that are not on the board (jack slots, alimentation slot, footswitch, potentiometers) because those are not on the scheme.Is there someone to share a complete scheme, with all components, wires and connections ?Sorry for my very low level of skill, and thank you very much.

Hi Torto,your wiring diagram looks almost correct. The ground(mass) lugs of the jacks should be connected to any ground point. I usually connect the DC jack ground to the input jack ground and take a wire from there to the output jack ground.If you power your battery like in your diagram it will be in parallel with your power supply, which is not good. Most DC jacks have two lugs for 9V, one of which is switched off when you insert the plug. If you have one of these you can take your battery + to the switched lug so it's disconnected when you plug in your power supply. This document shows how it's done:http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_sw_dcjack.pdf

And if you want to add a switch to turn your effect on and off, you can find a how-to here:http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.nl/2012/02/offboard-wiring.html

HiI'm back... I have made a new diagram including footswitch and 9V battery here : http://hpics.li/98dd7e0I wish it's right, and may be it will be usefull for an another newbee.I'll start the hardware work the evening.Thanks again

Hello everybody.So I have finished my pedale yesterday evening, and as I suspected it doesn't work :).My suspicions goes to :- bad welds, too bigs and touching themself between different tracks. I will check this.- footswitch connections => there is 3 x 3 pods, but is there a top and a bottom ? If I turn it in a bad way, may be it can explain my problem. How can I reconise the good orientation of this part ?

So it's me... Again...My problem is that the LED doesn't bright when I connect the battery.The funny thing is that when I connect the battery upside down, the LED is shining.

I have check the welds, all is OK.I have check the wires connexions, all is OK.I have check the components location,all is OK.I have removed the footswitch and the DC alimentation, and connected directly the wires.I realized that 10uF and 47uF Axial Electrolytic have a polarity and that they was upside down connected :) => I have reversed themI realized the same stuff for the 3 BC109C NPN Transistors

And now... the problem is the same... :(

Is there an upside down component that can explain that the LED is shining when battery is upside down connected ?

lvlark, thanks so much for posting this one! I heard this pedal many years ago in a demo vid, and had the GAS for it. I bought a Dark Side of the Moon board from Guitar PCB and put it together, but always got a very gated fuzz sound out of it. I didn't spend a lot of time troubleshooting, but just left it in the Fail Pail.

Finally got around to putting this vero together (actually, my first vero build, but I have a good deal of experience with perf and PCBs), and after a little bit of troubleshooting some solder bridges, I got love. Such a fantastic pedal. Thanks again!

i've been downsizing my pedal collection... literally. smaller enclosures were needed and i can't go without the lunar module so i crammed it into a 1590g sizehttp://i1381.photobucket.com/albums/ah213/absolutelyfibulous/IMG_20170828_072932491_zpsh3yos3pd.jpg

The Marshall 3005 Lead 12 was a mini-stack with a 12 watt solid state head made in England between 1988 and 1991. People claim it's a gr...

Note

Not all these layouts are verified and some are put together from unverified schematics. So if you have good luck, or bad luck for that matter, then please let me know by dropping a comment in the topic. Thanks.

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